Due to rapid advances in electronic sensors and wireless communications, there has been an increased adoption of wireless communication technology in industrial plants and factories. This increased adoption is attributed particularly due to advantages of wireless communication technology in terms of reduced cabling, flexibility, low maintenance cost compared to wired solution, easy deployment and the like. In light of such increased adoption, a multitude of wireless standards and protocols have emerged over the years to cater to specific industrial applications.
Due to the existence of such varied wireless standards and protocols, design and deployment of communication network in plants is a complex process. Additionally, in industrial plants where the life time of field devices and controllers is in years, it is not suitable to replace a device having a particular protocol when a new protocol is introduced. Additionally, in certain scenarios, it is also not possible to upgrade the devices with new protocols or standards, as the device firmware may not be compatible with the same.
For example, while ZigBee, WirelessHART, ISA100, etc., are based on same physical and link layers standard 802.15.4 technology. In 802.15.4 standard, the new emerging variants are 802.15.4g and 802.15.4k, which target specific utility communication or critical infrastructure network. Even though these standards are part of 802.15.4 family they still cannot communicate directly with ZigBee or WirelessHART systems and devices.
There have been several approaches which have attempted to solve the problems mentioned above. However, there is a need for an improved system and method that solves the problems mentioned above.